James Logan (chief)

James Logan c.1725-1780, chief of the Mingo, b. Pennsylvania. He took his name from James Logan (1674-1751) and is frequently called simply Logan. He was a leader of the Native Americans on the Ohio and Scioto rivers. Logan was long the friend of the whites, but when his family was massacred by white settlers (1774), his attacks against them helped bring on Dunmore's War. Logan refused to participate in making the treaty, and his eloquent speech became famous. He served with the British during the American Revolution.

Bibliography: See biography by G. S. Haber (1958).

Logan, James (c.1725–80), chief of the Mingo Indians, whose English name, although sometimes given as John Logan, was probably taken in honor of the Pennsylvania statesman. After 1774, when his family was massacred by white settlers on the banks of the Ohio, he began a series of attacks on the colonists, and was a leader in Dunmore's War. Although defeated, he refused to make peace, delivering a speech in reply to treaty offers that is often cited as a great example of Indian eloquence, and that was printed in Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia. During the Revolution, Logan aided the British. Later he became dissipated and degraded, and was killed in a family dispute. He figures frequently in literature, as in Neal's Logan, A Family History (1822).